Dave Balter has released an e-book entitled The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II. I am not a marketer but I am familiar with concepts like Dunbar's Number and how the spheres of influence in a community dictate the rate of spread for a message. The popularity of social networking has everyone talking about viral marketing these days. "Let's attach our product to this social network or that one and drive new traffic by word of mouth," seems to be the buzz.

I don't think most people realize how improbable a successful Word of Mouth (WoM) campaign is. Dave Balter's premise in this book is that while you can and should do things to get into a WoM stream, getting into a WoM river is much harder. In fact, he says that when the timing's right, the opportunity picks you, not the other way around. That's some wisdom I think.

In the sphere of influence in which I participate, the real trust zone is very small. This is happening on a wide scale I think which results in the fact that, "Marketers are spending more and more money delivering messages that consumers are trying harder and harder to avoid." WoM marketing is all about raising the influence of the dollars spent. But with such a small zone of trust, can it deliver?

What does this have to do with software architecture, Kevin? Well, as the liaison between the business and technical groups at my company, it's difficult to count how many meetings I've endured where someone touts the brilliance of the latest viral marketing idea they've come up with. And there are real business resources at stake here. Every moment we spend chasing down a bad idea that seems good keeps us from spending time on those that are truly worthwhile. I need the vernacular that lets me challenge those ideas in a constructive way and I found Dave Balter's book instructive to that end.

Download the free e-book from the link above (or click on the book cover to check out Dave's blog) and decide for yourself. It's a quick read. Hey, look at that! The distribution of the book is viral. Pretty cool, huh?